Town Barks At Affordable Housing ‘Riff-Raff’: The Law Bites Back

Sudbury Town Center photo by Bob Freund is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Sudbury, Massachusetts, according to local council, is inhabited by a very select class of people.

The minutes of a Massachusetts town meeting made the position of their Board of Selectmen quite clear: affordable housing dwellers are a class of riff-raff unsuitable for local gracious living standards. Wrapping this attitude around a bundle of legal challenges,  the Town of Sudbury decided to bring suit against a developer taking advantage of the state’s ‘Chapter 40B’ statute, which overrides local zoning restrictions for affordable housing projects.

This proved a costly decision. The court dismissed the collection of arguments as ‘wholly insubstantial’ and found that the town had acted with an ‘absence of good faith’, permitting the developer to apply to recover attorney costs.

The judge agreed. Sudbury is now $75,000 out of pocket and one Massachusetts town at least is aware that the state’s determination to lead in the battle against affordable housing will not be undermined by court action based on social prejudice.

Read more in The National Law Review:  “Frivolous” Town Complaint Results in Attorney’s Fees Award for Affordable Housing Developer

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